Motion to FCP image quality degrades

Hi,
When I create a generator in motion, then puplish to FCP, the image quality degrades
I cant figure out what is wrong, is it a bug somewhere or did i create the generator wrong..

In the attached generator, if you open it in motion and apply a 3000px size still (or any big size), you will see that the quality is good.

The image size in the dropzone needs to be smaller so you can see the entire image.
There is no keyframes in the drop zone image, so I have to do the animation in the dropzone properties. Regardless, the image is clear in motion.

if you save whatever image you use in the generator and publish it, it still looks good inside FCP. But as soon as you change the image in the dropzone (you can even use the same image), the quality degrades.

Any one know what the problem is?

I also tried using a slider rig, but here too you can use (apply) keyframes, but they dont work


thanks
Kurt

Does it happen to be clear when the playhead is stopped on a frame, and lower quality during playback?

It depends on where the play head is.

the generator zooms in around 400% or so, at one point, if i remember right..
In FCP you can zoom this much fine (and more) with no loss of quality if the same image is directly on the timeline. But once placed in a dropzone it will blur.

If you scale the dropzone image (publish this to fcp), and not the dropzone properties (publish also), it will not blur.
But, when you do this the image will now crop and get cut as you zoom the dropzone image perameter. Also this perameter has no keyframes, so you must use the dropzone properties scale.

at a loss on how to make this work.

Oh no, you can't zoom any original source image in any software 400 percent and have a clear image. That simply defies physics. No, that's the issue. You're zooming in way too much. Never zoom more than about 120-130 percent without expecting some fuzziness.

Sure you can!! I knew you could but was having trouble finding the right way
You can zoom just the attached clip if you want to test..(without the attached filter)
But I needed an auto filter to do this.
There is a problem with dropzones once in FCP.

Depends on the original image and the project size ..

I was able to fix the issue from the dropzone problem with a filter.

If this page allows it, download both the filter and image.

place the image in a 1920 timeline and drag it to 20 seconds (what this filters time is for)
Apply the filter to the image.
In the FCP transform settings, zoom to 1000 if you want..
But for this image zoom until the blue bar, top of the image, is at the top of the viewer.
It will be about 400.
Let the clip play and it will zoom, pan stop etc...

The filter perameters (for now) none are really needed except the last one, this controls when the pan will stop at the end..

Kurt

I see it wouldnt allow a 7mb upload.. anyway use an image that is 3000 to 4000 pix

If you do this same test with the generator I made, and the filter I made, both attached here, you will see what I mean. They both do the same animations, but the generator (dropzone) will blur, the filter will not.

dkag7 wrote: I see it wouldnt allow a 7mb upload.. anyway use an image that is 3000 to 4000 pix

OK, you're not zooming 400% of the image's native size, you're putting a huge photo in a Timeline that has a much smaller frame size. That's not a true 400% zoom of the image. I bet the Drop Zone is native 1080 or something, right?

Looking at your Motion project, which is 1920x1080, thus a photo that is 3000x4000 pixels will be shrunk down to fit the frame size, then enlarged to its native size to do a faux zoom, to keep the image quality. This is the Ken Burns effect.

On top of which, you're starting with your image shrunk down to 25%, then bringing it up to 48%. So yes, you're still not making the native 3000x4000 pixel image its full size.

Place a native 1080 image in a native 1080 Timeline, enlarge it to 200%, and see what quality you get.

But as you have it built, using such a large original image, you have plenty of room to scale it closer to 100% (which is much larger than your 1080 native effect).

I see what you're doing, yes, that is how it is done to maintain image quality and get that sort of effect. Start with an image way, way larger than your native frame size. But that's not a 400% zoom, or not what I'd consider one. That's just going from a shrunken size, to normal size.

Just a question of semantics.

yes, thats what I meant by
Depends on the original image and the project size ..

but anyway, if you notice what happens when you use the generator dropzone, and then the filter version.. you will see what i mean.
Dropzone quality is horrible Once you change the image.
If you keep the image in the generator THEN publish to FCP, it is OK, until you use another image inside FCP/dropzone.
to get around this I used the same animation with a filter instead.

thanks for looking

Kurt

I'm not seeing any image degradation with that template. And I'm using a 720 video file.

Here's the thing; your Effect Source layer never goes 48%, so it is always shrunk, not zoomed in. So the only image degradation would come from overly shrinking an image who's frame size is WAY large, like the 3000x4000 image you said you were using.

I'd say, try making your original image smaller, then try again. I don't see anywhere that anything is being made 400%. If you set the Grow behavior to 400%, the Effect Source layer is still only enlarged to 120%, which should be OK for enlarging an image from its native frame size.

I'm testing it in Motion and FCPX, and getting good image quality results. Nifty little template, too.